I have just finished writing an essay on the novella ‘Chroncicle of a Death Foretold’. You can find it under the ‘Text Response’ category. I’m interested in exploring concepts such as masculinity and gender roles.
Here’s my introduction:
The idea that ‘homicide is a legitimate defence of honor’ goes to the heart of Marquez’s critique of masculinity. Discuss
Chronicle of a Death Foretold exposes the complicity of Colombian townspeople who contribute indirectly to the murder of Santiago Nasar. Naming Nasar as the man responsible for her deflowering, the scandalous revelation that Angela Vicario is not on the evening of her wedding night, a virgin, becomes a matter of honor. Central to a narrative that documents the inevitability of events that have their foundation in a cultural system that deifies masculinity, the overwhelming view that the perpetrators of the crime, Pedro and Pablo Vicario, are innocent children, excoriates the violent underbelly of a community that refuses to acknowledge this truth. Compounding the unsettling nature of the events that unfold over the course of Monday morning – the morning of the Bishop’s arrival and the morning after the extravagant wedding of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario, the absolution that follows confirms the immutability of a Latin American community that recognises subconsciously its crime but continues to exist, twenty-seven years post the murder, in a state of denial.
